Beyond Repair
by Shaitanah
Summary: Hephaistion dies. His last thoughts are about Alexander. And Alexander’s thoughts are far from here. As always. Please R&R!


**Title**: "Beyond Repair"

**Author**: Shaitanah

**Rating**: PG

**Timeline**: Ecbatana, 8 months before Alexander's death…

**Summary**: Hephaistion dies. His last thoughts are about Alexander. And Alexander's thoughts are far from here. As always. Please R&R!

**Disclaimer**: Those guys belong in history. Most part of the dialogue is taken from the movie "Alexander".

**A/N**: Character death warning… well, that's obvious!

**Special thanx**: to AeternaNox who transcribed part of the dialogue for me cuz I had no DVD to re-watch the episode.

* * *

**BEYOND REPAIR**

Him who trembles before the flame and the flood,

And the winds that blow through the starry ways,

Let the starry winds and the flame and the flood

Cover over and hide, for he has no part

With the lonely, majestical multitude.

_W. B. Yeats. "To His Heart, Bidding It Have No Fear"

* * *

_

He was so pale, his lips covered in splits, his eyes shut. He resembled a shriveled leaf torn from a branch a long time ago, chased by winds and storms. Alexander bit his lip, choking the scream. 'Where is that doctor!?' he wailed in his mind. 'You bring him back! You bring him back now! I'll make you pay for what you've done!'

They told him it was not the doctor's fault. They warned him Hephaistion had insisted on taking that meal despite prescriptions. Intuitively Alexander knew it was true but his entire self wept at the sight if his friend, his soldier, his _alter ego_ lying motionless and withering… like this.

He held back the tears and spoke quietly, "Hephaistion".

Alexander's gentle tone brought Hephaistion back to reality. He dived out of his sickening reverie, his eyes glimmered with recognition. His golden-haired god was talking to him. Hephaistion wanted to give him one final smile but strength deserted him.

"I feel better", the general lied. "Soon, I'll be up".

"We're leaving for Arabia in the spring. I couldn't leave without you!" Alexander muttered hastily, squeezing his fingers.

"Arabia…" Hephaistion sighed and looked away. The ceiling turned over and splashed around the bed in shiny fragments.

Hephaistion struggled to breathe. Childhood memories flooded his mind. Alexander used to dress him up like a sheikh… he'd wave his wooden scimitar, they'd fight and play for hours. Hephaistion never let him win. He met Alexander's teary eyes and reminded him of that wonderful time, causing Alexander to half-sob, half-smile.

"And you're the only the who's ever been honest with me. You saved me from myself. Please don't leave me, Hephaistion!"

The dying man took the king by the hand.

"My Alexander… I remember the young man who wanted to be Achilles and then outdid him".

"And you Patrocles!" Alexander breathed fervently. "And then what happened? Was it the myth only young men believe?"

"But how beautiful a myth it was…" Hephaistion murmured.

The sound of Alexander's voice, filled with sorrow and heartbreak, drowned in the sense of overwhelming pain. Hephaistion arched back against the pillows, wheezing. He could hardly understand what his king was talking about. He could only see Alexander's handsome face masked by grief – and he was grieving for _him_. For a second Hephaistion felt what seemed to be a sting of joy: he was the only thing in the entire universe that worried Alexander at the moment.

"I worry for you without me…" Hephaistion whispered.

Alexander's chair creaked. He rose and spoke passionately: "I'm nothing without you!Come, fight, Hephaistion! We will die together! It's our destiny! With our children, with our wives! And our sons will play together as we once did".

Alexander paced about the room, his Persian robes floating behind him smoothly. Hephaistion shut his eyes forcefully. Even in his last moments he was forced to listen to Alexander's ranting! He would have spat, mocking the bitterness of it, had he not felt so drained.

He drifted off to deathly haze again, the world spinning in front of him. His consciousness, somewhere deep, remained painfully clear, yet he could not speak, he could not speak, he could not rise to greet his king properly, he could not object to Alexander's words and beg him to hold peace for a moment. He would have fallen to his knees in front of Alexander. He would have embraced his legs and pressed his head to Alexander's stomach. He would have kissed his bronze skin, feeling the touch of Asian sand upon it.

"Why is it that even when you know I'll be gone in an instant, you keep musing on how it would be in your perfect world?" he would have asked, his voice husky, and gentle, and charged with love and intolerable sadness. "Why can't you stop, my Alexander? Why must I listen to this _now_?" He would have lost his patience for the first time in history. He would have balled his fists and looked up at Alexander, panting. "Gods, I've always loved you! You and your dreams! Zeus, I've been so jealous. You would have never rejected me for any man, or woman, for that matter, I've always known it – but your dreams! How you love this big, bright, beautiful world! If you had to choose, admit it, you would choose–".

Alexander would have caught his hands and looked him straight in the eye. He would have whispered passionately then:

"You! I would choose you! Forever you. Don't leave me, Hephaistion! I'm a wreck without you".

Too perfect. Hephaistion had always loved him selflessly, being more the second Alexander than himself. He had never been too demanding, he only wanted to hear that he meant more to Alexander than anything in the world and beyond. Just once.

The king kept talking and fountains of fire exploded in Hephaistion's heart.

"Thousands of ships will launch from here, Hephaistion! We'll round Arabia and sail up the Gulf to Egypt. And there we'll build a channel through the desert and out to the Middle sea. And then we move on Carthagen. And that great island, Cicily, they pay large tribute!"

'Peace, Alexander, please, I beg you!' Hephaistion wanted to shout. He would shut his ears but the approaching shadow of Hades sucked the power out of him, leaving him empty. He used to yearn for that world, too. He used to wake up at night and he would not understand if he were up or just dreaming again, so beautiful, so perfect it had been when he rode beside Alexander watching the universe unfold before him.

'I'm so jealous of losing you to this world you want so badly', the words Hephaistion had spoken to his king years ago resurfaced. A tear slid down his cheek.

Hephaistion smiled inwardly. It was a sad smile for he had nothing to be happy about. 'I'm leaving you, my Alexander. Will you ever remember me?'

Oh, he should not have been so selfish! He should not even have thought of replacing the world in Alexander's eyes! The world that had been created by gods and Alexander, son of Zeus, had no doubt been destined to conquer it all! One look at Alexander was enough. He shone with inspiration, his face the face of a young god in all his glory. Even now he was living a beautiful dream. It was probably meant to save Hephaistion, to pull him back to the world of the living though it was his time to go. He did not want to linger because of the dreams.

He listened to Alexander speak, his heart throbbing in pain.

"After that the Roman tribe, good fighters – we'll beat them! And then explore the Northern forests. Through the Pillars of Heracles to the Western Ocean".

Faster and faster, he spoke ardently, attempting to infect Hephaistion with his passion. But the dying man remained calm and irresponsive as a dying man should. Slowly life seeped away.

'I have always understood you better than anyone else. Yet I will never understand you. I hope you never change, my Alexander'.

"And then one day, not ten years from now", the king's voice became softer, no more than a breath of wind to caress the leaves of a dying tree, "Babylon with its deep water harbour will be the center of the world. Alexandrias will grow, populations will mix and travel. Asia and Europe will come together…"

With a sigh Hephaistion passed away, never knowing that Alexander's hectic thoughts came back to him in the end. The king turned back to see the messenger of death exit the room with its prey, and grief consumed his mind. The walls shuddered as he roared like a wounded lion, pouring his feelings out in that dreadful sound.

_January 2007_


End file.
